Joseph Weeks says he was deeply disturbed when he learned last week that his uncle, Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, had been sent home from an emergency room at a Dallas hospital last Friday.

"I was terrified. Worried. Scared. All of the above," Weeks, 43, said Thursday outside his tan frame home in this former textile town in North Carolina’s rolling Piedmont.

Weeks said he suspected his uncle had contracted the Ebola virus in Liberia before flying to Dallas last month, his first trip to the United States, to attend his son’s school graduation. Duncan began to feel ill and visited the emergency room Sept. 25.

"They sent him home with those signs and symptoms," Weeks said. "And I was afraid he might not survive. So I called the CDC.

"I didn’t believe that they were moving fast enough at that time,’’ he said.

After he contacted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Weeks said, Duncan was admitted Sunday to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, where he was tested and treated for Ebola.

"Unfortunately, it happened to him," he said. "He’s a member of my family so I have to do everything I can to make sure this man survives."

If Duncan had not been diagnosed and treated in the U.S., Weeks said, Americans probably wouldn’t be overly concerned about Ebola.

"If it wasn’t here, I don’t know what the reactions would have been. I don’t know that you all would’ve been here on my doorstep," he told reporters gathered around him.

Because of some Americans’ misguided reactions to media coverage, Weeks said, "the misunderstanding is that people think Ebola is around Kannapolis. And now they’re looking at my house and thinking, oh, Ebola might be in that house.’’

"Ebola is not here,’’ he said. "Ebola is in Texas and it is being contained. They are doing an outstanding job."

Assuming his uncle is treated and recovers, Weeks said, "I’ll be there to shake his hand and give him a hug."

Weeks said he planned to fly to Dallas as soon as possible to be with other family members.